We chat with Sanam from Vista Del Lago Estate, a local wedding venue in Bakersfield, California. We discuss their venue amenities, pricing, tips for brides, and why they do it.
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Evermoore Wedding Vendor Show where we chat with local wedding vendors in Central California about how they help couples getting married. This show is designed for engaged couples and for our fellow wedding vendors to learn about and from each other. Browse over 1000 wedding vendors on our Central California vendor directory. This show is brought to you by Evermoore Films, Kern County’s leading wedding videography company. If you’re looking for a local wedding videographer in Central California check out Evermoore Films.
Transcript:
Sanam: The most heartwarming aspect is, you know, when a bride comes to you and, you know, we sit down and we discuss to see that smile on their face and their happiness. For me to be able to give that to them, that’s one of the funnest memories to have just to put a smile on someone’s face.
Josh: Welcome to the Evermore Wedding Vendor Show, where we chat with local wedding vendors.
I’m Josh from Evermore Films, the host of the Evermore Wedding Vendor Show, also the home of the Evermore Wedding Vendor Directory, where we have over a thousand local wedding vendors listed in the Central California area. Let’s get into today’s show. Welcome to the Evermore Wedding Vendor Show, where we chat with local wedding vendors.
I’m Josh from Evermore Films, and today I have Sanam from Vista Del Lago Estate with me. She is a local venue runs a local venue here in town. And we’re here to chat about her venues. So now welcome to the show and tell us a little bit about yourself and your, your venue.
Sanam: Thank you, Josh. Good morning.
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for having us having me on the show. It’s a pleasure. And you know, Josh, I’ve gotten to know you better over the past couple of years and you’ve been so kind and us being a new venue, you’ve You know, been very helpful and giving us you know, advice and putting us in contact with other vendors.
So my husband and I greatly, greatly appreciate all your kindness. You, you, you’re, you’re wonderful.
Josh: Oh, thank you. Well, tell us a little bit about this is a logo state and what you guys do there.
Sanam: Okay. So just a little bit of a background. My husband and I purchased this 20 acre property, which is located on South H street, approximately 2 to 2 and a half years ago.
And our vision was to Okay. Turn it into a wedding and event venue. So that’s, that’s where the, that’s where the vision started. And you know, and we’ve we live in Los Angeles, so we’re new to Bakersfield and we’ve just fallen in love with, you know, everyone in Bakersfield and the town and everyone has just been so kind when you being one of them, everyone’s just been so kind and helpful and, you know.
Introducing us to different you know, different things that we can do to make the business business grow. So yeah, we’re a wedding venue. We We, we’ve hosted several, many weddings. We also do fundraisers. We do a lot of nonprofit events quinceaneras, birthdays. So we have, you know church events at our venue as well.
So, you know, everything from weddings to, you know, fundraisers and, you know, nonprofit organizations they’re always welcome at our venue. So, so it’s a you know, a big spectrum that we that we cover and, you know, we have a private lake on the property, which is, you know, which which then that’s where the name comes from.
It has fish in there. So some people do come fishing on, you know, at the property. It’s just very peaceful and relaxing. The feedback that I get from people when they come onto the property is that they don’t feel like they’re in Bakersfield which is, you know, which is wonderful. And us coming from L. A. From all the craziness in L. A. Coming to that, you know, to the house. It’s just Peaceful. It’s calming. It’s serene. So we want to, you know, we want to maintain that. And yeah, so that’s, you know, that’s where we, you know, that’s where our vision has been. And And, you know, we look forward to many, many years of, you know, having events there and, you know, putting a smile on people’s faces.
And so that’s it.
Josh: Well, that is awesome. So so since this is a video podcast we did produce a video tour for you guys. So we’ll, we’ll insert that in here for the, for the. Those of you watching on YouTube, you’ll be able to watch that as we keep talking. We’ll go ahead and start playing that that way you guys can see what this beautiful venue looks like.
And for the podcast audience, you know, go over to YouTube and check it out. So as that’s playing, we’ll just kind of keep talking here. So now tell me a little bit about you know, your background and experience. How’d you guys get started in starting a wedding venue?
Sanam: You know, my husband has always been in the real estate you know industry.
He he’s done it for several years. I, I did not know anything about real estate. I, you know, I have I received my master’s degree and my bachelor’s and my master’s degree in criminology. So I worked for the department of justice. That’s, you know, okay. That was my, that was my previous life. And then when, when I got married and had kids, I stepped away from that and just was a mom for several years.
And again, my husband has always had, you know he loves real estate and this was, you know, his first his first venue. And he, he wanted to do this and he he always, my husband and I, we, What we, our goal is to always, you know, help out communities and to give back and just put a smile on people’s faces.
And what better way than to host events and, you know, weddings and the happiest time of their lives to have their, you know, have their weddings there and raise money for nonprofit charities, nonprofit organizations. So that’s where the, that’s what we that’s why we started this this business.
Josh: That’s fun. That’s fun. Well, I know you guys have, you know, donated plenty in the giveaways that we’ve done for for the vendor community wedding community here in town. So you guys have been generous there. So thank you for that. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, fun memories, you know being able to provide a place where people can come and have great memories.
I know that’s something that you guys are interested in. Are there any fun memories you have along the way? Some memorable moments or, you know, memorable events? Because I know you guys don’t just do weddings. You also have, you know, movie shoots and music video shoots and all kinds of things there at the venue because it’s such a beautiful property.
Are there some fun memories that you guys have along the way?
Sanam: You know, yeah, there, you know, in this short time, we’ve again, we’ve met so many different people you know, whether it was for movie shoots, music videos and weddings. And I think just to cover the weddings, the, the, the most heartwarming you know aspect is, you know, when a bride comes to you and, you know, some brides are on a budget and they really want to get married there.
And, you know, we sit down and we discuss, you know, that. You know, just different options for them and to see that smile on their face and their happiness for me to be able to give that to them is, you know, that’s one of the funnest memories to have just to put a smile on someone’s face. So that’s that.
And then for music videos and movie shoots we’ve come across you know, different celebrities and different artists and you get to see You know, you get to see how movies are made. You get to see how music videos are made. You see how how much work really goes into a two minute music videos.
I, you know, shoot for 12 to 14 hours a day, sometimes for two, three days. And for movies, they shoot, you know, five or six days for, you know, again, 12 hours a day. And it’s just for such a small scene, how much hard work goes into it. So you gain an appreciation. Of what really goes into making entertainment for for us viewers.
So those are been that, you know, and then just, you know, meeting different people from different, you know walks of life from different countries and from different states. And, and some people are, you know, you find connections with. That, you know, they know a friend of your, your friend. So that’s been very, that’s been very fun to and different cultures as well.
I think that’s one of the most interesting things about having weddings there is that we, we cater to different cultures, different ethnicities, and you get to learn about, you know, how they’re, you know, how, how they how they do weddings. So that’s been very interesting for me as well.
Josh: Yeah, yeah, I’d actually love to dig a little deeper on that and just talk about how, how is it that you guys cater, you know, what you guys offer to the specific needs of, you know, just, just in weddings alone you know, every bride has a different vision for her wedding.
And, you know, there’s so many different unique. Aspects to a wedding. And I know you guys have spaces for ceremony of spaces for reception spaces for getting ready You have a bridal suite, you know, you have a place for the guys to get ready Like you you have a lot of options there. How do you guys cater?
And meet the specific needs that brides and grooms have
Sanam: You know what we what I love about our venue and what a lot of people love about our venue is that I call it a one stop shop. So they get to, you know, besides being a beautiful 20 acre estate and you have options of just like you said, you’ve been to the house you you can switch things up.
So much on our property. You can have, you know, a reception under the pergola. You can have it in front of the lake. You can have it on the courtyard in the backyard. There’s so many different options, which I absolutely love. And the actual house, it’s a 10, 000 square foot home. And you’ve seen it, Josh.
It’s a 10, 000 square foot home. And we What sets us apart from other venues is that a lot of the bridal party and their families can actually rent out the house for their wedding. They can come a couple, I have a lot of brides, a lot of couples that come a couple days before their wedding. They come if they have out of town guests.
They, they, you know, they check into the house. And you know, they, they stay after the wedding, they make a weekend out of it. They can, after the wedding ends the next day they can barbecue, they can use the pool, they can go fishing, they can go jet skiing on the lake. So it just makes it a, a little vacation slash wedding.
Get away for everyone. And our bridal suite is stunning. You’ve seen it. It’s just it’s breathtaking. We worked with a designer to, you know, everything was custom made in that room and the same for the grooms room. You know, we don’t want to forget about the grooms. We have a gorgeous pool table.
Beautiful furniture. So yeah, we just, we we try to cover everything and it just makes, you know, it just makes things much simpler when you come to our venue, you don’t have to get hotel rooms, you don’t have to get other Airbnbs, you can all just come there, stay there, have a wedding and enjoy, you know, enjoy the weekend.
Josh: Yeah. Yeah, that is fantastic. And just so people kind of have an idea, roughly how many people, you know, could, could fit and sleep, you know, say at the venue, if you’re having, you know, family or out of town guests coming what’s that kind of look like?
Sanam: You know, the house isn’t again, it’s 10, 000 square foot.
You can sleep a lot of people, but I don’t like to, I can, we can do 14 up to, I want to sometimes push it to maybe 16 to 18. But that’s, you know, that’s my maximum. I can fit a lot of people, but you know, bed, bed wise, you know, I can do 14 to 16 people in the house and then the venue itself. We can hold up to a thousand people.
I had Discovery Church. They had their festival last May and they brought 700 people. I had our fundraiser there last year, 500 people. So we can, you know, we can fit as many as you want on the venue, which is wonderful.
Josh: That’s great. That is great. Well, thank you for telling us a little bit about the venue.
We’re gonna take a quick break and when we come back We are going to talk about some advice for brides and grooms who are planning their wedding and looking for a venue
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Josh: All right. Well, we are back with Sinam. Sinam, tell us a little bit about some advice you would have for couples who are planning their wedding and, and trying to get things figured out.
Sanam: Of course. You know, the, one of the most, I mean, there are several you know, important you know, Factors that you new couples need to engage.
Couples need to consider first is, you know, plan ahead make sure you have, you know, the the date that you want you know that’s one of the biggest things I think the second most important is. to have a wedding planner. I cannot stress that enough. You, you need a wedding planner. A lot of people think that they can do it themselves.
But at the end, you really need someone to help you, to guide you, you know, from the beginning to, you know, because they’re experts, their advice, you know, their advice means, means everything. And you know, they, You know, event planners walk you through the flowers, you know, the, the food, what, you know, where you should set up reception, what, you know, what time your music should start.
So they plan everything out for you. Because that day just becomes so hectic and so busy with, you know, the bride you know, getting ready or the groom getting ready that they don’t have time to organize organize stuff. So you that day. You know, your families and, you know, the couples need to relax and let others handle it.
So that is, that, that is my biggest, you know, my biggest advice to, to everyone is to, you know, get a wedding planner and let them help you out. Because it, you know, the day of things, things always go wrong. And you need someone that’s an expert, someone to calm your fears and, and to handle everything.
And, you know, I guess another advice is make sure you, you know, the venues that you choose are, you know, are licensed, that they, you know, they have a permit because you don’t want to, you know, you don’t want to go with somewhere that does not have a permit it, you know. That that is one of the most important things as well.
And with regards to your vendors, make sure, you know, they, you know, make sure you, you, you ask around and, you know and see what others have said about those, those vendors. And you know, just, and have fun with it, you know, enjoy your day. Don’t be stressed out. It is stressful, but try not to be stressed out.
Enjoy the process.
Josh: Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and as someone who’s been doing weddings for 20 years, I can echo the issues with, with making sure your venues have, have their licenses and their permits all in order. I know, I know this, this past year, there’s been some, some situations that have arisen in the, in the local wedding world with, with some venues that did not have those things in place.
Sanam: Yeah, make sure you ask them, you know, yeah, you ask them just so you know, do are you permitted to hold events here and you know, it’s very easy to piece of paper, they can show it to you. And that’s that because you don’t want to, you don’t want to wait till the last minute and your wedding, you know, gets canceled, you do not want to do that.
You know, last year, I had several couples that you know, their venue was, you know, the venue was shut down. So they were scrambling. And luckily, we had some openings and I We took them, you know, we took them at our venue, so you have to be very, very careful about that as well and make sure your vendors.
Another thing, make sure your vendors are have insurance are covered. That’s, you know, that’s another important thing to consider it to to remember as well.
Josh: Yeah, I am surprised at the number how small the number is. Of local venues who asked for copies of our insurance. It’s, it’s surprising. There’s really only one or two venues in town that ask.
And I’m like, yeah, I’m like, why isn’t everybody asking for this? Like, you know, like a, like a videographer, we’re bringing in light stands and lights and cameras that like, Like the amount of liability for for any of them like a dj like like like why aren’t people asking for this?
Sanam: Yeah anything I mean for us.
I always tell every all the vendors, you know, we always say You know the minute anyone steps onto our property they need to have insurance I don’t care how small or how big their you know, their company is they need to have they need to have insurance So it’s just to cover, you know The vendor, the guest and ourselves.
So it’s just, you know you have to do your due diligence in these things and be careful.
Josh: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Well, that, that, that was brought to you by some insurance company as an ad, I’m sure the insurance digression. So what tips do you have for couples who are looking for a venue in particular, aside from insurance?
Cause we definitely discovered that. Adding in the idea that You don’t really have a wedding date until you have a venue. Like we’ll have couples call us and like hey We’re getting married on this day. Great. Where’s your venue? We don’t have the venue yet Well, then you don’t have a wedding date because you don’t have a venue then not you don’t have anything official.
So What advice do you have for couples looking for a venue,
Sanam: you know, just when you When you come to look for a venue just make sure it sits well with you Make sure that you connect with you know, the The owners make sure you connect with the event planner that’s going to be in charge of that venue that day.
I can’t stress that enough. You know, you just, I always feel like you have to be, you have to have a positive attitude. And, you know, again, I hear stories from different, you know, brides that come to us and say, Oh my God, this person was just not so nice. Or, you know, and I just feel like that makes, you know, that makes your business That makes your business flourish.
You have to have a good attitude. You have to have a positive attitude. And you just have to be nice. And at the same time, you have to be firm and, you know, tell, you know, tell the couples like this is going to work. That’s not going to work. You know, like if music ends at a certain time, we cannot push, we cannot push because some people will push those boundaries and, you know, You have to, you know, you have to just make sure that, you know, you, you stand firm on, on rules and regulations, but just be nice about it.
There’s always ways to, to, to explain things to couples. You can either be nice, nice, or you can be mean. That’s it. I’m saying, you know, hey, you know, music has to be shut off by, for example, music has to be shut off by eight o’clock. And there’s, you know, again, the reason being because of the permit that we have and the neighbors.
So we have to be, you know, just the way you say it and you know, And make sure the venue that, you know, just another advice for, for the couples looking for a venue, make sure that you have different options at the venue, because you want your wedding to your wedding ceremony, your party to, to stand out from, you know, from the others.
And I think, and one thing, one amazing thing about our venue is that, you know, there’s so many things that you can do. There’s, you know. So many different ways you can set up your wedding. Again, like I said, you can set up your wedding in a courtyard. You can set it up under the pergolas. You can do, you know, the backyard, you can do the front.
So there’s so many different, you know, ways to do it. And just to make your event look different than others, you know, you can bring, you know, Again, I, I’ve had, you know, weddings that they, you know, they, they bring in food trucks, they bring in, you know, ice cream trucks, which not a lot of venues can do that, but because we have the space, we can do that.
I had a wedding a couple of weeks ago that the bar was a, a car, it was a, like a A Volkswagen truck, which was really fun, which was really nice. Yeah. So just make it fun. You know I, the church event that I had, they brought in Ferris wheels, they brought in paddle boats, they brought in hot packs.
So you can do the, you know, you’re more than welcome to do those, you know, even for your, for your wedding you know, you can bring jet skis on, you know, so, so many, just look for something that’s different that stands out that makes you, that sets you apart from others.
Josh: Yeah, let’s do weddings on jet skis.
That’d be fun.
Sanam: You would be surprised of how many people actually want that.
Josh: Right? Let’s do it. Okay, let’s see. Let’s talk about budgeting for a minute. So First, kind of just some general advice for couples as they’re looking about budgeting for wedding venues in general. And then we can kind of talk a little more specifically about what you guys do.
Sanam: Yeah. I mean, again everyone, everyone is on a budget. You know, I’m on a budget every year on everyone is on a budget and, you know, make sure, you know, when you set that budget, you give yourself a little bit of a wiggle room. Because there’s things that you know, sometimes come up, you know, you may need to rent a tent so you need to budget.
You know, you never know. It’s an outdoor venue. It may rain. It may not. It doesn’t rain that often in Bakersfield as you know, Josh, but you know, you never know with Mother Nature. So you know, Set your budget, but have have wiggle room to, you know, if something comes up, you can, you know, you can say, okay, you know what, we can take care of that and and do your homework and, you know, ask the venue about, you know, the, if you do an all inclusive, ask about the vendors and how much, you know, they charge and you know, again, vendors increase the prices just Do your homework and ask your questions and if the venue and the vendors, they have to be honest with you and that’ll help you out a lot.
Josh: Yeah, yeah, definitely. And then for brides and grooms who may be interested in Vista Del Lago, can you give us an idea of what your pricing is like?
Sanam: Of course, you know, we offer all inclusive packages and standard packages. And I want to say, I want to say 90 percent of my couples choose the all inclusive package just because it makes things so much simpler for you guys.
You know, we work with different vendors you know, whether it was for catering, for DJ, for flowers for photographers, we work. With different ones. And you being one of them, Josh. So, you know, you get to, you have the option of choosing and I always tell them, you know, when you choose the all inclusive, you can go in for your catering and try the different foods.
Try the different caterers. See, see which one you like. The same with DJ, the same with photographers. See what packages they offer. And if you, you know, again, photographer is one of the most important because you’re with them. The entire time. So they’re added to their, you know, the way they give direction.
That’s so important. So that’s our all inclusive package. And again, it just makes things much simpler for you for the, for the couples. You don’t, they don’t have to go, you know, around. You know, looking for this vendor or that vendor we have, we’ve chosen the best of the best in Bakersfield to be our vendors.
So that’s, you know, and our prices with all inclusive packages, I’ll just give you this tier up to 200 guests, we charge 210 per person. And then the prices change when you go higher in the guest count. Okay, perfect. We also do standard packages. I definitely offer that. And the standard package you know, I We have that option because we have people that are from different backgrounds and ethnicities and they’re very, very particular about the type of food that they want to bring, the type of music they want to bring, decoration.
So I have to have that as an option as well. And up to 100 people for that it it’s 13, 000. Okay. Yeah. So, and then it’s great. It’s changed after that as well.
Josh: Awesome. Well so thank you for sharing all that with us. I’m sure that everyone appreciates understanding a little bit more about what you guys do.
Do you have, a quick testimonial or, or, or story from a happy, you know, happy bride and groom maybe that you want to share with us?
Sanam: Oh my goodness. There’s so many. I, you know, there’s so many. I would just, I would tell them to go on Yelp because I have, you know, all my brides, you know, they, you know, they always write amazing reviews for us.
On, you know, you can, you can see those on, you know, on my Yelp page. Even on, you know, on my management companies that handles my Airbnb Again, a lot of my brides do rent out the house. A lot of couples do rent out the house. So there’s testimonials on there too. And, you know, and, you know, you can, you can view those and see and, you know, everything is on my website.
So you can, you know, you can just click, you know, put our name in and you can, you know, see the reviews. And yeah, they’ve all been, thankfully, they’ve all been very positive. And I just, I love I love to, you know, It’s such a pleasure knowing that I, you know, that I was able to help someone out to be able to make their, you know, special day wonderful.
So, you know, after I read the reviews myself, I’m, I’m just like floored. And I shared with my husband on my friend, come see what they wrote for me. It’s just, it’s so nice that it brings me to tears what they write for me. So it’s, you know, I, I love that. I love that.
Josh: Yeah, well, you guys are always so kind and wonderful on the day.
So I’m not surprised. Thank you. Absolutely. Well, speaking of your website what is your website and the best ways for people to contact you? How can people reach out to you?
Sanam: It is www.vistadellagoestate.com And you can, we have gallery on, on our website so you can see the previous weddings that we’ve, you know that we’ve had.
My Instagram, you can, you know, it’s under Vista Del Lago. It’s under Vista Del Lago Estate as well our Instagram, so you can see the different you can see the different you know, events that we’ve had, the, the music videos you can take a look at those.
The phone number is 661599 3458.
Josh: Perfect. All right. Well, Sanam, thank you so much for being part of the show. Appreciate you sharing a little bit about your venue and let people get a chance to get to know you and see how great you would be to work with and learn a little bit more about the venue.
So thanks for being on the show and we appreciate it. Of course. My pleasure.
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And until next time, I’m Josh from Evermore Films. Be sure to tune in next week for another episode of the Evermore Wedding Vendor Show.